Can't find N64 on TV.

I have an N64 that I haven't played in a few years, tonight I set it up hoping to play Zelda, but I can't find it on the TV.

The Nintendo powers on (the little red light is on) but nothing appears on the screen, the cable I have is a scart lead with a white, red and yellow things going into the scart head. I've tried searching, but still nothing.

I have just plugged in my gamecube to see if that works - and it does instantly without tuning.

Any advice would be great, my TV isn't new or HD, it's an old samsung, I'm not sure if that's relevant or not lol

Your N64 is actually outputting composite video via scart.
Do you have any other scart appliances plugged into your tv at the same time?
RGB tends to knock out composite video on a tv.
For example if you have a freeview box that is set to RGB then N64 running composite may just show a black screen.
You won't have to unplug anything just power down other scart appliances when you turn the N64 on.

I hooked up my n64 onto my Samsung tv last week using the AV cables attached to scart. I wanted to play Mario 64 after missing out on it for over 15 years. No matter what I did, there was no signal, but my gamecube worked perfectly. Then I realize it was due to the N64 games. Try Giving it a blow on a few games and see what happens.

Yeah N64 carts sometimes need a bit of a clean to get working. It should be showing a signal the same way the GameCube does though sometimes the lead needs to be pushed in a little harder at the back of the N64, make sure it's plugged in nice and tight as I've done that before myself and had no picture.

I'm trying to get it to work on AV2 (because gamecube works on that channel) I've tried blowing in the machine and the game, but the screen doesn't even flicker or react at all when I turn the nintendo on.

Unfortunately I don't have any other games to test out, so it's possible that the game itself just could be completely broken, if I knew someone else with a n64 I could test it out, but I don't lol

Thanks again for all the advice - It looks like I'm going to have to buy zelda for the gamecube instead

I'm trying to get it to work on AV2 (because gamecube works on that channel) I've tried blowing in the machine and the game, but the screen doesn't even flicker or react at all when I turn the nintendo on.

Unfortunately I don't have any other games to test out, so it's possible that the game itself just could be completely broken, if I knew someone else with a n64 I could test it out, but I don't lol

Thanks again for all the advice - It looks like I'm going to have to buy zelda for the gamecube instead

Check everywhere for dust including the AV connector into the N64 and the port, also the cartridge slot itself.

Have you checked to see if your TV has composite connectors (red, white, yellow), you could just plug them in directly rather than via scart.

Also try both scart ports with nothing else plugged in to see if it works and try via the aerial connector and tune it in that way.

I only ever hooked up my N64 to an HDTV once out of curiosity and the picture quality was nothing short of a total abortion.. and that was in RGB! I dread to think what S-Video or Composite look like. Anything that deals with such low resolutions is going to look horrible on modern displays. CRT is really the only way to go outside of emulation, I think providing you do things properly then the games still look lovely even today.

I only ever hooked up my N64 to an HDTV once out of curiosity and the picture quality was nothing short of a total abortion.. and that was in RGB! I dread to think what S-Video or Composite look like. Anything that deals with such low resolutions is going to look horrible on modern displays. CRT is really the only way to go outside of emulation, I think providing you do things properly then the games still look lovely even today.

For old consoles on an LCD you really need an upscaler and a scanline emulator to make them look any good.